


Note to Self

by voksen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, Gen, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione works on a specialized charm to alter her parents' memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Note to Self

Hermione startles awake with a little gasp.  The candle is guttering low, wax dripping down and forming a little pool in the base of the candlestick, threatening to spill out and onto her books and parchment.

She charms the wax away with a tap of her wand, then sits and stretches, her shoulders cracking as if she'd been out for ages.  But she can't have been asleep more than an an hour or so; the candle had been already half gone the last she remembers.

Still, she scolds herself silently, that's an hour she doesn't have to spare.  Once she's done refining the theoretics of the improved memory charm, then she can sleep.  It has to be absolutely perfect, and it has to be done _soon_.

Standing, she shakes her head to clear it, pacing up and down to get the blood flowing again.  " _Accio_ candle," she murmurs and lights the new one that flies to her hand from the last flickers of the old, swapping them out carefully.  By the time this one is gone, she thinks, she'll absolutely have the answer.  Before she'd drifted off she was _almost_ there, she's sure of it; the solution is still hovering just on the tip of her tongue.  She sets the burnt-out stub next to the other two that lie on top of her messily-stacked scrap parchment.

Perhaps if she tried a more arithmantical approach, she thinks, and roots through the pile of books; she'd made a note on the applications of applied arithmancy to memory alterations not too long ago and stuck it in the text--

But instead of her notes, she finds a sheet of parchment, folded three times over.  Her brow creasing in confusion, she pulls it out and unfolds it once.  Her own name is written on it, in what certainly looks like her handwriting.  The only thing is that while she has plenty of notes to herself scattered about - she is researching, after all - she certainly hasn't _addressed_ them to herself.

Carefully, she sets it back down and taps it with her wand - " _Specialis Revelio - Aparecium!_ " - but it doesn't seem to be magical at all.  Nor is it unusual in any other way; the parchment is perfectly ordinary, ripped to about half a foot in length, the ink is black and the letters sized to a standard quill.  Except for _existing_ it's not mysterious in the slightest.

Biting her lip, Hermione picks the note up, unfolds it, and reads:

 _Try applying the calibrations from page 495, footnote 3 of Seventy-seven Solutions to Navigating Advanced Numerology_.

She blinks: she hadn't thought of that, but now that she does - it's perfect, just the right balance to what she's already worked out.  Although where the note came from - and then she's hastily repressing the urge to stand up and look around.  If future-her is still about, she really doesn't need to see herself and risk paradox.  Although, _really_ , Hermione, she thinks to herself.  Haven't you had enough mucking about with time?

Well, it doesn't matter; what's done - or will be done - is done.  She stuffs the note back into her book and sketches the numbers out with her wand, watching them transform the charm she's been setting up.  The pattern is complex, but - yes. Yes, this is going to work!

No matter how sure of it she is, though, she doesn't quite want to make her parents the first test case - but it has to be soon, and no one else can know or they won't be safe and all of this will have been for nothing.  Unbidden, a dozen memories of Potions class come floating up: Professor Snape making them test each other's potions; occasionally, with a smirk, making poor Neville drink his own.

Well. She'll just have to use herself.  Besides, she has everything written down, so even if something goes slightly wrong - no. This is going to work.  She squares her shoulders, tilts her chin up, and sets her wand to her head, focusing carefully on her memory of the first page of Seventy-seven Solutions - it'll be easy to see if that's altered, all she'll have to do is check the book itself.

" _Obfuscio_."

 

Hermione startles awake with a little gasp.  The candle is guttering low, wax dripping down and forming a little pool in the base of the candlestick, threatening to spill out and onto her books and parchment.

She charms the wax away with a tap of her wand, then sits and stretches, her shoulders cracking as if she'd been out for ages.  But she can't have been asleep more than an an hour or so; the candle had been already half gone the last she remembers.

Still, she scolds herself silently, that's an hour she doesn't have to spare.  Once she's done refining the theoretics of the improved memory charm, then she can sleep.  It has to be absolutely perfect, and it has to be done _soon_.

Standing, she shakes her head to clear it, pacing up and down to get the blood flowing again.  " _Accio_ candle," she murmurs and lights the new one that flies to her hand from the last flickers of the old, swapping them out carefully.  By the time this one is gone, she thinks, she'll absolutely have the answer.  Before she'd drifted off she was _almost_ there, she's sure of it; the solution is still hovering just on the tip of her tongue.  She sets the burnt-out stub next to the other three that lie on top of her messily-stacked scrap parchment.


End file.
